Aught Empire

Æ: Volume 2

2010-06-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

Please follow the link to the right to read our most current version of Æ ------>

The new site will stay true to our main thematic and conceptual intentions.

This page will remain as an archive of our first two years.

Organic cure-all

2009-01-31T17:48:00.000-08:00

The next time you're feeling gross and ill-humored, I dare you to eat some leafy greens. Some really good ones like collard greens or kale. Something nice and dark with lots of folic acid. Or you could make a giant salad if it's summer with lots of romaine (not just hearts of romaine that look like iceberg lettuce standing up, but the stuff that's actually Green) and raw vegetables.

I'm telling you, vegetables are where it's at.

Every Freaking Day

2009-01-21T06:29:00.000-08:00

Do you something in particular as a ritualized activity every single day of your life? Like meditate, watch Seinfeld reruns at 6pm, hold your breath at 11:11am, or go for a run? I'm not talking about something that you do a lot, or most days, or that you TRY to do every day. But something that actually gets done intentionally, something that is additional to the necessities of life.

It seems to me that this ought to be possible, and my idea is to go ahead and think about what you'd like to include in your daily routine. Then try implementing it, do or die. Think of how productive you'd be if you wrote a page of your story 7 days a week, or how fit you'd be if you did 10 sit ups every single day, or how much of Proust you'd have read if you read a page a day, on all days.

That stuff adds up. I think it'd be cool to take something that was valuable to you and to actually work on it as part of your life.

Whether this is possible or not, you'll have to let me know!

(Maybe it's possible for just over a year?)

Reclaiming a Good Night's Sleep

2009-01-20T06:21:00.000-08:00

I just had a flying dream last night. Do you know what that means? Somewhere in my subconscious, I have at least a grain of happiness. Probably a whole fistful of happy-grains, actually. Flying dreams like, never happen.

And perhaps I wouldn't have attained this fabulous flying dream (with skis, nonetheless, so I could go skiing after I landed in the ocean) if I hadn't made a couple of changes lately. I tried out a new routine. I perfected my sleeping environment.

Eight blissful hours, it seems, are more likely to happen under a few circumstances:
*That you're not stressed out as you go to bed
*That nothing terribly unpleasant wakes you up in the morning
*That you don't go over the worries of the day as you attempt to fall asleep

Give this a try, and let me know if you sleep better:
- Stop thinking about work/performing work-related activities at least an hour (preferably two hours) before bed
-Perhaps alter the lighting in the bedroom gradually as the night goes on, so by bedtime you've only got a lamp or two turned on...and not the fluorescent overhead!
-Invest in an alarm clock whose noise doesn't totally freak you out. I use the "buzz" setting on my cell phone...it's such white noise that I barely even register it, but it always wakes me up.
-Most importantly, in bed, tell all of those nasty thoughts to just shove off! Kick 'em out!! Nothing really gets worked out as you go to sleep, right? So send them away, off into the future, to be dealt with tomorrow. (Or miraculously solved by other forces during the night.)

A good night's sleep makes everyone healthier, happier, less likely to have road rage, and less prone to being completely bonkers. I'm sure we all know this from experience already. But seriously. It's time. Try to get more sleep.

Taking back your neighborhood

2009-01-19T11:54:00.001-08:00

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and tomorrow Barack Obama will be inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. To celebrate and start making that change a reality, Obama has been urging everyone to get out and do a little volunteer work today.

I helped do some tree planting prep at the Berkeley Aquatic Park yesterday and it was awesome to see so many people in the neighborhood coming out. It's heartening to see first hand that people do care about their neighborhoods and their environment and their country. Someone even said this was an exciting time to be alive, as we were digging out benches installed as part of a Works Progress Administration projects back in the 1930s. We can come together again and make change happen.

So the idea is that you make that your own. People have jobs and school and things to keep them busy, but I believe that a lot of people still have good intentions. I noticed on my way back from the park yesterday that the traffic island in front of my building was filthy with trash, so I got up this morning, put on my gardening gloves, grabbed my iPod and cleaned it up. There are hundreds of people living in front of that island and it only took one of us about 100 minutes to clean it. Even if only a tiny fraction of people actually did that once in a blue moon, it'd make a huge difference.

Is your sidewalk littered with trash? Or your neighborhood park? Or your shoreline? Is there something broken in your neighborhood that you know how to fix? Do you have a minute to drop off a few cans at your local food drive?

I'm asking you and Gandhi is asking and Martin Luther King Jr. is asking and Barack Obama is asking you to care a little bit, to take back your neighborhood and be that change.

Digital Doorman

2009-01-18T09:21:00.000-08:00

This idea owes gratitude to my friend Sarah who got me thinking along these lines. In the past people in society used to have all these filters around them. If you wanted to meet someone you would need letters of introduction from mutual acquaintances that could attest to your goodness. You would stop by someones house and drop your calling card. And if they wanted to see you either they would or they would make an appointment to do so.

Today we live in immediacy. Your phone rings and the caller innately feels like you should be there to pick it up. When people send you an email there is a sense that you have to get back to them as soon as it is possible. It is quite a struggle (for some of us) to escape this mindset. Some people impose limits on themselves, only checking email in the morning or evening, but some of us are just bombarded by the contact and need a step back.

Thus, digital doorman. I can't quite be sure how this service would instantiate itself, but the premise would be the acknowledgment and emphasis that you are beyond some sort of firewall, that you're insulated. (Grandcentral is an example of this- requiring people to give their names before you talk to them and letting you review your callers before answering.)

I know in some sense this insulation implies a sense of inequality. Like you're too important or too busy to talk to whoever shows up. But really I'm thinking of it more as a necessary insulation so you can have room to breathe, to interact on your own terms. Or at least a balance between your own and everyone elses.

I was honestly considering turning on an auto-responder saying something to the effect of I might take awhile to get back to you. And I have one prof whose every email comes with a footer declaring the need to write again if you don't receive a response due to shear volume of email received. These too methods really emphasizes the lack of a system for communicating this to your potential callers. I think increased clarity of the terms of response would give us a much better response rate. Less people dropped. And maybe a more realistic expectation on our fellow communicators.

Recession-chic picnic blanket

2009-01-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

I think it would be really cool to make a really giant (or at least pretty big) picnic blanket out of the stuff you'd lay down on the grass if you didn't have a picnic blanket.

You could sew a bunch of your old towels together and then cover it with a patchwork of your old pants or jackets or worn out blankets. If you sewed it by machine, which you'd probably need to if you were using old jeans, and quilted it up decently, it would even be machine washable. And I bet it would look pretty cool. Or at least the potential for it to be attractive would be limited only by your aesthetic vision.

Rooftop garden subsidy

2009-01-11T10:18:00.000-08:00

You know how you can get tax credits or something for putting up solar panels? I think we should also have subsidies for other kinds of green roofs and environmentally friendly initiatives.

I don't really know what's involved in converting a normal roof to one of those living roofs, but it would be really cool if you could grow stuff on top of apartment buildings - especially if you could grow food. They say you save on heating/cooling expenses with something like that, you're helping convert more carbon dioxide into oxygen and you're still making use of the solar energy hitting your roof. Only you eat it instead of turning your lights on with it.

I don't know if rooftop farms are really that practical in terms of green roofs since it's possible they need deeper soil than what you can get away with on a roof and the roof pitch might not be quite right, but if it would work, how cool would that be? Even having a decent container garden on your roof could help deal with some of your water run off.

You could make a little CSA for people living in apartment buildings. Granted you couldn't feed all of a high rise with one little plot, but the people who tended it could share the food. Anyway, it's a start. At the very least, I'm always in favor of plants.

Taking a little break

2009-01-03T17:29:00.000-08:00

There's one thing that's always a good idea - vacation.

Speaking of vacations, we here at Aught Empire will be taking a little pause from our regularly scheduled program to recover from the holidays, get powered up for a new year and generally enjoy life.

We'll see you again in about a week!

Personal Libraries

2009-01-02T15:46:00.000-08:00

Slow road back from death. We'll get back on pace eventually. (My current thought right now btw is just to have posts for every day no matter when they end up appearing.)

But for today:

I'm currently obsessed with the word library meaning a particular collection of books--over against the physical location. In a large part I feel this way because I love my own personal library. But you know whose elses I might like? Famous peoples.

You could totally sell collections of books that were the total collection of a particular person. Famous authors, politicians, inventors. Really whoever. People could do research and try to put together all the books a person had read. If just all the books they had in a collection when they croaked. That would totally sell tho.

Imagine you could have friends into your library room and say 'these are all the books Ben Franklin ever read.' Or 'this room represents the accumulated literary knowledge of Dostoevsky'.

And people could seriously try to read all those books. Like an insane project to know what their favourite thinkers knew. Seems like fun to me, but I guess I'm a book nerd.

Catching Up

2009-01-01T08:55:00.000-08:00

In keeping with New Year's types of things, lets think today about being nice to ourselves. Maybe this is the opposite of the New Years resolution spirit, which attempts to be exacting upon you after a season of gluttony. But we here at the Empire would like then to be a voice of reason. Resolutions work best when you don't resent them.

Say you promised yourself to write a daily blog and punctually post updates on a daily basis. And sometimes you fall behind a few days. And sometimes you cheat and change the date stamp on the post. Well, you also post ahead sometimes because you know you'll be gone. The effect, a post every day, will eventually be the same. The impulse is the same. Products don't indeed have to be perfect, they have--at least in my mind--to be true.

So go a little light. Go a little easy. Don't let the rigour of your resolutions distract you from the purpose, the idea, the concept behind them. Do your thing. And do it like a human, full of foibles, flaws, missteps, miscalculations and all that stumbling jazz.

Indoor sparklers

2008-12-31T21:31:00.000-08:00

This is probably a terrible idea, but one can afford to be a little reckless in honor of New Year's Eve.

We all agree that sparklers are the best thing ever, no? Except it's kind of a bummer that you have to leave the party to set them on fire outdoors so as not to burn things down indoors. So, what if you had indoor sparklers? Would that not be rad? Something like a glorified incense stick (which sparklers pretty much already are) that you could light indoors without destroying furniture or your nice hardwood floors or setting drunk people on fire by accident. And maybe they would even smell nice...

Drive thru movies

2008-12-30T21:11:00.000-08:00

I will be the first to admit that this idea is dated maybe 15 years and made kind of (but not entirely) obsolete by NetFlix, but I would also like to point out that I thought of it like twenty years ago, so there.

Here goes:

Let's be honest. All the time you are thinking to yourself, "It is Friday (/other weeknight) and I want to watch a movie except not one of these movies that I have and have watched already twelve times this month." And the problem is that you don't want to set foot in the soul sucking pit that is Blockbuster or spend the next six hours trying to crack the advanced logic used to organize Reel (/other rental place that claims to have every film known to creation and some yet unknown, see also: Scarecrow in Seattle).

Therefore, I decided a long time ago that what would be really awesome is some kind of video rental drive thru. Or, better yet, a kind of glorified Pink Dot (and maybe Pink Dot actually does this come to think of it...) where you could call them up and tell them what movie you wanted to watch (and they would of course have it) and they would deliver it to you for next to nothing and you could also have them deliver like pizza, beer, popcorn, etc. that would be actually good pizza/beer/popcorn because that's what you really want to consume along with your movie habit.

Reasons this is better than going to the store yourself:
1. no waiting in line
2. no need to find the movie yourself
3. it may very well be cold outside

So, maybe you like to browse. Ok, fine. But could you not just browse like IMDB, say? And then tell them what you wanted. And order your pizza/popcorn/beer and have it delivered or pick it up yourself from the drive through?

Ways this is different from Netflix:
1. no monthly fee!
2. food comes with your movie!
3. no waiting for 24+ hours for your movie to show up.

I mean, at the very least, couldn't movie rental places have a drive through? Is that so much to ask?

Chapstick and floss

2008-12-29T10:51:00.000-08:00

How about a little bit of floss stashed in the bottom of a chapstick tube? I think that would be pretty easy to do and that way I could only lose one thing as opposed to two.

I lose shit a lot. It's kind of my cross to bear, whatever that means.

Snow Roomba

2008-12-28T10:57:00.000-08:00

I was originally thinking about some kind of super heated shovel for the snow...but that seems a little silly. And like maybe you don't want the snow 100% melted if you're trying to shovel it. So scrap that idea. Throw it right the eff out.

But how about a super heated roomba? Huh? How about that? Now you're interested. It would just be a tiny toaster sized device that you charge overnight, program in a set distance and turn loose in the snow. It would only go straight (this would avoid have a weird, windy path made for you) and would go as far as you told it to melting the snow as it went.

You wouldn't have to shovel anymore. Or there'd be minimal shoveling anyway. This bad ass could take care of a lot of the grunt work for you.

Accelerate

2008-12-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

I SWEAR I posted this before. Sorry for repeating that (cuz I know I've written that) but I feel like I should let you know that I'm aware that I've probably posted this before and that we have no good way of keeping track of that shit. Sorry, yo.

Anyway, I think it would be handy if cars had a light, similar to the brake light but in reverse, that let you know when a car was accelerating. Sometimes it's hard to tell, but it would definitely affect the way we drive. I honestly think it would lead to less traffic. You wouldn't accelerate behind someone if they weren't speeding up, right? But sometimes it's hard to tell and we end up with that stop and go shit. Yup.

Happy boxing day to all you euros.

Doctor You

2008-12-26T20:59:00.000-08:00

This is clearly a mistake, but I'm writing it anyways. I want people to have their own access to basic doctoring supplies. I'm envisioning a kit that is made up of a series of common tinctures. And perhaps you have a pass a basic sanity test before being allowed to have one. And yes, it can not have some of the big guns that are either super addictive or dangerous. But like, how about some of the basic elements that end up in most potions the doctors give us? A small quantity of the HCL stuff, a little bit of steroid, the basics of antibiotics. I feel like you could do this in a safe way. I mean, I don't know how, but someone could devise something for that. And then you could totally make it so people could mix up as a pill or a salve or what have you the basic necessities. Save you a doctor trip, same you the insane medicine costs.

I figure someone out there could totally whip up a kit like this full of totally legal substances too that was more like an herbal remedy kit. Which would be less cool in my mind, but would none the less get to the point of what I'm saying. Think if this like an advanced first aid kit. Basically we all have these things in our medicine cabinets anyways. Someone should just make a super well put together and full of instructions for use kit like that. Colds, allergies, headaches, cuts and bruises, minor infections, all that jazz. Go to.

Driving Miss Daisy, the video game

2008-12-25T11:01:00.000-08:00

Sorry for two video game posts in a row. Oh, and sorry for a video game post on Christmas. I realize it should be something about loving your fellow man, etc. but it just wasn't in the cards. My sincerest apologies.

The big Jose Calderon assist for this one goes to Luis. He wanted all Morgan Freeman movies...so I'll see what I can do.

Todays idea is about taking movies that really don't need to be turned into video games and doing just that. Like, Driving Miss Daisy, per the title. I guess you'd just kind of drive around in that one? At it's core it would be a driving game. Where you get points for running errands, I guess? I never saw the movie so it's hard to be too specific.

But there could be a Shawshank Redemption game. And that one I can speak to. You'd try not to get raped, smuggle shit into the prison, and some other related prison jobs.

Robin Hood, Batman Begins, and Wanted are already games...

But Evan Almighty isn't! And neither is the Bucket List! And holy fuck Morgan Freeman has been in a handful of movies.

But really, just make those overly dramatic films (or romantic comedies for that matter) into video games. Why? For the sheer ridiculousness of it.

And of course, Merry Christmas.

Blurred lines

2008-12-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

I was talking with Hot Sauce the other day and I realized that I learned a lot from video games. Seriously. I learned what flag went with what country, the rules of sports games, critical thinking, time management and a bunch of other stuff. But I never knew that was happening. It just sort of did. I think I'm better for it.

And this wasn't playing educational games either. This was playing Bomb the Russians and Kill Knife. There's always been a pretty bold line separating educational games from secular games. And guess what? No one that doesn't have to play educational games ever does. Seriously. They're boring as all fuck.

So the idea today is to blur those lines just a touch. Sneak in some elements of educational games into the regular games that all the normal kids are playing. Except normal kids aren't the biggest segment of people playing games...but that's another story.

What kind of educational elements? I don't effing know. More puzzles and facts thrown at you. You already have a lot of consequences built into games which is pretty cool. So maybe you don't need much more. But a few little tweaks would probably help.

Self-balancing technology

2008-12-23T18:36:00.000-08:00

Did you know segways balance themselves? Yup. You don't even really have to do anything. You just kind of rock your feet if you want to go forward and the reverse to go in reverse. Let me make myself more clear: to keep a segway in balance you have to do nothing. For reals.

So why haven't we applied this technology to other stuff that needs balancing? The original device that made me think of this was ladders. Couldn't ladders just go straight up and not need to be v-shaped? And if you put wheels on the bottom then you could move the ladder without getting off of it.

A ladder that moves while you're on it and takes up less room than a traditional ladder. Yup, that just happened.

And if they balanced themselves then they'd be super safe. Except, you know, if you fell off.

Cuz you don't have self-healing bones, John Connor.

Pop music

2008-12-22T09:24:00.000-08:00

Obviously music is always evolving. And there are sounds we can't even imagine that will be commonplace in our lifetime.

I'd like to try and speed that process along. And I'll be up front...I have no idea if anyone but me would like to hear it. But eh, whatever.

So let's take traditional pop songs and play them with weird instruments. I'm not talking about covering the standards, I'm talking about writing new music that you'd hear on top 40 radio...and then playing them with a saw. Or some crazy wind instrument made from root vegetables. The harmonies and melodies would all sound familiar...but there'd be something really different.

This could be cool. Where's Kanye on this one?

Super secret storage

2008-12-21T10:11:00.000-08:00

My favorite subject. I think I must have been some sort of burrowing animal in another life 'cuz I love me some hiding stuff. Either a burrowing animal or a fighter pilot. I can never tell.

So throw away water bottles are out these days. It's all about reusable bottles. I bought my first tiny plastic bottle in months today and it felt weird. I had an empty nalgene in my car, just nowhere to fill it up.

But if we're gonna be carrying these reusable bottles around all the time, why don't we build some extra uses into them. The lid could be made into an extra storage spot without much trouble. Or the base. Or more tricky, but far cooler, a removable cylinder in the middle that you could fill with whatever. And you could fill the bottle with water and it would look like all your shit is underwater.

I'll give you a second to settle down from how cool that would be.

So yes, you lose a little room for water. But you gain room for everything else you're always carrying. Keys, change, advil, floss, bullet casings, a lighter, bootlegged Eric Chaves t-shirts...

But seriously. $10 for a boring ass piece of plastic or $15 for a boring ass piece of plastic with kick ass storage hidey holes? I thought you'd make that decision. Good job.

Small miracles

2008-12-20T09:09:00.000-08:00

My brain is weird. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe it works just like normal. But anyway, here is a way I process things. Maybe you do it the same way, maybe you don't. When I have something coming up that I'm stressed out about, like a speech at work or a non-work function I don't really want to go to, I try to bookend it with things I like.

So say I have a tough project on Wednesday I have to do. I'll plan something fun and relaxing on Tuesday night, and then something fun and relaxing for Wednesday night.

Right now you might be thinking, "this guy is retarded. This is the most basic thing ever."

Well first I would scold you for saying "retarded". Then I would say, maybe you're right. But I'm not talking about HUGE parties or treats for yourself to surround the bad stuff. I'm talking about slowing down for a second and appreciating the good things you have going on in order to pull some energy away from focusing on the bad. It could just be dinner with a friend. Or sitting on your couch and doing nothing. Or making the dinner you really want.

You can just focus on that good moment which comes before the stressful one. And then when the stressful starts to creep in, focus on the good moment that will come after.

I think it's about building a balance and not letting yourself tip over one way or the other. This has been so incredibly helpful for me I can't even tell you. I wish I could explain it better. Because if I could, then you might be excited about it.

This is just how I get through the day. Whatever. Not all our ideas can be fascinating.

Facebook Photo Scavenger Hunt

2008-12-19T08:55:00.000-08:00

There are two ways I envision this happening.

1. The first would be to establish a list of things to scavenge for and then rifle through any profile you could find for those pictures. Here's a potential list of things to add to this kind of scavenger hunt:

alcohol being consumed
cheesy sunset
things written on the beach
inappropriate picture taken at work
pets wearing clothes
etc

Pretty simple. You get points based on how many you can find and how quickly.

2. In this scenario, you actually have to take the pictures. You still esatblish a list, but the idea is to post the pictures to FB, as opposed to finding them on FB. Got it? So you and your friends would agree on the things to look for.

Bad sunburn
Way too drunk person
Poor sign grammar
etc

Either of these could really work as an application. Or just something managed amongst friends. I wish photo scavenger hunts got the same love as fantasy football.

The Sex Diet

2008-12-18T10:58:00.000-08:00

I like to think that if people had shit to do all the time, and weren't ever bored, they'd eat a lot less.

Of course not everyone eats when they're bored. But a lot of people do.

So my idea is to have sex every time you're bored. More sex = less food = dieting. Not to mention all the positive health benefits obtained through regular intercourse.

But let's slow down a second. Obviously it isn't that easy. You need a partner, and you need a partner who's into it and has a similar schedule as you. And is also down to have lots and lots of sex. Not easy to find I guess. But if you know this person, then there's no reason you can't get started on this diet today. And what if you don't know this person? Then it gives you something to shoot for.

You should also eat healthy foods to replace all the energy you're using blah, blah, blah....

UPDATE: This already exists. Fuck you, Kerry McCloskey. Fuck you.

Spicy Mashed Potatoes

2008-12-17T10:36:00.000-08:00

Someday we'll be so organized around here that we'll have theme weeks. Like, we'll do a whole month of Christmas ideas, or a week of food related ideas, etc. But for now that really isn't even close to the case. Which means you get a few lines by me explaining how things will be someday. And the whole time all my rambling is pretty much filler.

Yup. Today I'm suggesting a recipe for spicy mashed potatoes. I googled this and found a few recipes. However, they were either mashed potato balls (which get fried during the process) or use horseradish. Gross. My recipe uses chili powder, potatoes, and a healthy amount of butter. And some other stuff. Onions? People like those.

I think mashed potatoes don't get enough love. Probably cuz they're so boring. Let's add some damn flavor to them, change the color a little bit, and go from there.

Look out. Spicy mashed potatoes might change your whole world.

Sticks & Stones

2008-12-16T12:21:00.000-08:00

The way we use words is important, right? Your kindergarten teacher was wrong in telling you that words can never hurt you. Words are powerful, impactful, defining… you get the picture. So the idea is to look into your daily transcripts, find some words that you might be throwing around willy-nilly, and consider changing them.

For me, the phrase I'm tackling is "I feel." It usually precedes some sort of expression of thought or emotion. Now, following this phrase with something emotional or an actual feeling makes sense. But here's the odd thing: I've found myself using "I feel" to start a sentence that describes a thought or opinion I have. As in, "I feel like we don't want to go that route." Or, "I feel like that ad could have a little more white space to it." See, because it's at work that this phrase particularly bothers me. Shouldn't my thoughts and opinions be rooted in critical thought, as opposed to emotional reactions?

So now, every time I speak to express something, I will consider if it's an expression of a thought. If it is, I'll start my sentence with "I think" or something similar. If it's an expression of emotion, then I'll start my sentence with "I feel."

And I'm not sure, but I think (see? right there, I did it right there!) the result will be twofold: I'll express myself more clearly, AND I will be more conscious of whether a statement should come from a critical place or an emotional place. It could actually work backwards, changing the place from which my statements originate.

So find some words in your life that you might be letting slip in unnoticed, and notice them.

ps- This is my inaugural Æ post, thanks to messenger & noweverybody for the letting me add a few drops to the bucket!

Snow globes and sun jars

2008-12-15T11:08:00.000-08:00

Snow globes get a bad rap. I think, in general, people aren't so fond of them. Not that they hate them or anything, but given the choice between a snow globe and the cash equivelent, most people would take the cash. Hey, to each their own.

But living in an area that gets no snow, I'm thankful for the wintery goodness that a snow globe invokes. Just for a minute I can stare at the peaceful cozy scene inside and imagine I'm there. It's nice.

The idea for today however is to sell a warm weather option: the sun jar. This is something people in cold weather climates can break out when it's snowing so that they can fantasize about being warm. Same idea as a snow globe, except this one has a light in it AND it warms up. So you can hold it in your tiny hands and enjoy the bright sun and it's warmth. And yes, there would be a tiny scene inside. Santa on a surf board perhaps?

There are a million ways to make this work. Ok, granted I can only think of three. But you get the idea. You could plug it in or have it run on batteries, or you could use the same technology as reusable hand warmers (tough to make the light work), or, and this is my favorite, you could run it off solar panels. So, you know, your sun jar is actually powered by the sun!

And I could charge one up in California and send it to my friends back east all full of west coast sun. That's how this whole idea got started in the first place.

TIVO for the internet

2008-12-14T10:35:00.000-08:00

So a friend told me this is basically like Google. Ok, true, one feature is no different than a search engine. But the second part is more like TIVO.

Ok, so I plug into this search engine and I search for something. Let's say I want to watch the "Dick in a box" video. Easy enough. So I search it, find it, and watch it. But the search engine records all that and then it says, "hey, you might like "Jizzed in my Pants." and it tells you how to get there.

It mostly works for entertainment sites because if you're just looking for some information it would be annoying if you kept getting referrals to other information on the thing you already figured out. Like, I don't need another recipe for bread pudding. This one is fine.

But yeah, guiding you to entertaining things based on other entertaining things you like is totally helpful.

Pie Night

2008-12-13T16:49:00.000-08:00

Hey! It's an idea that I've actually done and can personally speak to.

Pie Night is like an idea for a party. You can guess, I'm sure, what kind of party. Everyone brings a different kind of pie. And then you all eat the pie whilst talking about your 401K's and your spin class. It's fun and a great thing to do around the holidays. Throw in some mulled wine or...beer? Beer goes great with pie, right? But yeah, this is kind of a winter thing. You know, when friends are in town and/ or sick of family.

But here's the 2008 update: After pie, drag everyone out to one of those fun bars where you can play darts and board games.

Tsk tsk to all of you who thought "Pie Night" was going to be something dirty. I'm looking at you, Billadonna.

S.B.T.A.C.B

2008-12-12T18:54:00.000-08:00

Slightly Better Than Average Citizens Brigade. Yup.

So the idea here is to get a bunch of people to do good stuff. Not the kind of stuff that would end up in the paper or on TV or would necessarily change the world. Just good stuff. Canned food drives. Park clean-up. A commitment to volunteer somewhere once a month. Stuff like that. And nothing that would require any financial obligations or fundraising.

It wouldn't all need to be organized either. Well, ok, there's gonna be some organization. But maybe one day everyone just gets together in the morning, goes out to do good stuff for two hours, and then meets back up to trade notes on the good stuff they did.

What's the point? As always, who fucking knows?

Two Stacks / We want two stacks

2008-12-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

Pavement, yes. Good eye indy jerks.

This post is about grading papers. But it could just as easily be about any project you're taking on that is in its essence very repetitive but requires your brain to be somewhat alert while doing it. Like if you had to write emails to fifty important people in a row and fairly quickly. I don't know. Read and the apply to your own work at will.

The thing with grading papers is...well there are two things. First, it requires you to be on your game. You have to be able to read things that don't always make sense. you've got to focus. And then judge. The second thing is that there is generally time pressure. Which doesn't always mean you have the luxury of quitting when you lose your eyes or your head.

Currently solution? Go ahead and do the work. But sort them into: wide awake and with it on one hand and sleepy and fog-headed on the other. The wide awake pile, you're done with those. The fog pile has to get a second look. Chances are you've probably done most of the work for yourself already. But it is probably best to be sure that you haven't accidentally drawn funny cartoon figures in the margins or circled words you found funny the first time you read it.

You'll thank yourself. Your students won't. But maybe you'll see less of them in Office Hours the following week.

Match.com for couples

2008-12-10T17:50:00.000-08:00

Slow down there, chief. It's not what you think. Yeah, I do want to get couples together, but not like your dirty mind is thinking. Pervert.

I just realize it's hard for couples to meet new people. Maybe they can meet other couples, but it's hard to really expand that social circle. So the idea here is to expose couples to other groups, couples, and singles who might be engaging in similar activities. It's just a way to get hangout buds together. Maybe there are parties they can go to. And it could put them together based on how well the group would get together, not just two individuals. And since they aren't going to be together forever and ever (it would really only be a few hours) the service doesn't need to be nearly as accurate as the dating sites. Hooray for lowered standards!

I know of a couple services like this, but not ones that cater to couples.

Some people don't have trouble making friends and could do without the internet. Well great for them. Jerks.

Grow it up, Cut it down

2008-12-09T00:36:00.000-08:00

I know it is a myth to think that one can be totally self-supporting and solve all the worlds problems by rejecting the mass produced world and all. We have to engage, I know. But it is also a myth that you need to buy a new piece of furniture every time the current cut and shape goes as little out of fashion. And this is just one project. One project that could become many. Resists with time.

Grow a tree. Plant one or a bunch today. Then cut it down and do something with it.

And since that'll take awhile. Get some other wood right now. Like big raw scraps of a cut down trunk. And like make it into a table or a bookcase. Anything. Just start with the rawest of the raw and make something. Spend a lot of time on it too. Make it really well in fact. And if there is something wrong with it, fix it. Take it apart and make it again. Give the object some love and some history. I'm all for material fetishism. Give it some power of its own.

And the trees you grow, mark em off for a later date when they're to be made into something too. I just love the idea of your things having a special place, a story and a life. So when they have something wrong you want to get in there and make it better, not throw it out.

And yeah, maybe it gets thrown out in the end too. But at least work on it.

But this is me.

Calling stuff

2008-12-08T09:20:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but I lose my keys all the time - ok, not like really lose them, but manage to set them by the sink in the kitchen instead of on the dresser by my bed where they always are and always should be. Or I'll forget my phone in the closet, and it'll be as good as lost to the world when I have to leave Right Now for the airport.

Except that when you lose your phone, you can call it. So, it's never really lost. Unless you actually lose it, but even then you can call it.

Anyway, I want to be able to call my keys. I want to be able to call my keys from my phone and have them ring or vibrate or flash a little light when I can't find them. And this calling of stuff could be extended to whatever other important things you always need to find at the last minute. How helpful would that be?? So helpful.

OneTwo

2008-12-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

What would this place be if it wasn't just a repository for the things we intended to do but may or may not ever do.

I'm going to try to put together a record called "One,Two" that is all only two chord songs. And will probably feature the lines "One / Two" in each of the songs.

I think it'd be a fun way to test the limits of what you can do with only two chords at a time. And I also like some pretty simple stuff so why not? I've never been too big a fan of virtuosity. Probably because I'm lazy and bad at things. But you know, whatever gets you by.

Take that 3-chord punk.

People Laws

2008-12-06T00:09:00.000-08:00

I was having one of my internal debates about whether or I believe in copyright laws especially as they pertain to artistic production. And before I get to my extended idea, I'd probably say that in reality all I want is a huge extension of fair use laws. Like for example I can do almost anything I want as long as I'm not making money off of it or something. In such an instance I'd be redefining 'fair' as something like I'm allowed to listen to all the music I want without having to pay for it. But onto idea proper:

Copyrights should be totally non-transferable. And to such an extent that the sole creators should always have the rights to them. Main point of is: corporations can't hold copyrights. They should probably be assured of some use of the copyright, but they shouldn't ever actually have them. I'm willing to concede this little bit because clearly if a corporation is housing, fostering and otherwise giving the person space to create the thing worthy of copyrighting, they clearly have a stake in it as well and should be compensating. But I just don't think that creation should ever be taken from the person. (Again, see above about fair use and what it would mean to 'take' something.)

What I'm asking for here is a difference between what can be granted to an institution or corporation and to a person or group of persons. Even a group of persons are still particular persons. Corporations start to float away, they have rights that aren't tied down to specific people. And as such they have lives of their own that can be bad for me and me. Anyways. Harsh laws for corporation. They know how to exploit so should be reigned in. Each people could theoretically do that too. But I guess I'm envisioning a world in which rights are so well tied to individuals that single powerful ones couldn't do the evil things corporations seem capable of doing in this day and age without batting too many eyes.

Anyways. Same ol' tirade. I want things for free. And I'm happy to share my things. I do in fact have some too. Enjoy. Use them fairly. Thanks me. That's all.

Alternate universe play

2008-12-05T07:06:00.000-08:00

I was trying to think of a way that to solve the problem of popular plays needing to be in giant venues so that everyone and their mother can come see it before it moves to the next town. This is a problem because when you use a huge theatre, the actors have to act to the back of the room, which makes everything they do look fake and overdone - as opposed to movies and real life where you can get up close and don't have to telegraph your feelings far, far away.

And thus I came up with this genius idea - the alternate universe play, where the play never stops and two audiences see two different versions of the story.

Doing the exact same play twice simultaneously could get hard - like what happens when your character drenched with water in one scene and then has to be dry to do it over again for the other half of the audience - or what happens if you're supposed to be on both stages at once? And of course it would throw off your character's emotional continuity.

So, instead, what if you did a single play told from two (or more!) points of view. One set would be at the saloon and one set would be at the schoolhouse. Or you could do different rooms in a house. Or different people's houses. And your character would go from place to place and interact with the people there and tell their side of the story. And each audience would see it from one side or the other. .

Maybe the dad is a total hotshot at the office, but doesn't get any respect at home. This would be fun acting-wise because you'd really get to dig into your character and let them play two different roles. I know you get different scenes in a normal play, but this way you'd have to go out of your way to have each character make sense within each context to each respective audience. Or you could treat it like two alternate universes.

The stage would have to be in the middle with the audience around the outside with the two stages split somehow. In all likelihood, this would require someone to custom build a theatre to house this genre of plays, but it would be worth it, and you could use the venue for other things in the meantime. People have done this before - see Wagner and the theatre in Bayreuth - and could therefore do it again.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is a brilliant idea. I can't wait to see one.

AP

2008-12-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

Today's idea to learn more about the Associated Press. What do they do? Who are they? How come so much news comes through them? Do we think they are evil or are they good? Is it possible that they are unbiased? Or if that is an impossibility at least without a controlling consciousness with which to direct bias?

Can I send things to the AP that might be picked up other places? How much does that cost? Can our blog go out over the AP? What might that even mean?

I figured I'd write one final sentence that wasn't a question.

What fucking aisle is the charcoal in?

2008-12-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

I've asked that question. Out loud, but to myself. And I haven't gotten a response believe it or not. This may have happened to you, too. You may have been in a popular supermarket, any chain will do, and wondered where the soap, or the condoms, or the roasted peppers are. And the next step, after wondering that and wandering the aisles for a bit, is to wonder where someone you might could ask is hiding. You know, like an employee of that fine establishment. And of course you never find one. You just walk and walk and look and look.

I think this might solve all that. It'll solve it for those of us with cellular telephones anyway. It's a simple phone number that you text with the name of what you're looking for. Then, seconds later, you get a note back that says: aisle 5. You get an answer to your question! Just like that! It's really quite simple.

There are a million other ways to do this. There could be little units located throughout the store on which you could look things up, not unlike Borders. Or it could be a website that's only accessible from inside that store. Doesn't matter. But this would improve a lot of shopping experiences.

Maybe they want you to hunt and see things you never knew you needed and that aren't on your list. Maybe that's part of their evil code of ethics. I have no idea. But if that's the case...fuck them.

Towels

2008-12-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about this in my half sleep so I can't be sure which parts of it I thought were really good and which parts were only good in the half of me that was asleep. But I've felt the need to have a lot of non-disposable wet towels. Something like wash clothes, but a whole system that allows you to pick one up, use it for something gross-like cleaning the bathroom, cleaning up spills in the kitchen, whatever-and then dump it into the dirty laundry. All I'm really thinking of is some low grade wash cloth material that lives in one bin there it stays wet and then has its own laundry bin right next door. I don't like the idea of those things going in the regular laundry. And sometimes you need something more solid than a disposable wipe.

That is all.

Vote for the cast

2008-12-01T09:39:00.000-08:00

So obviously this hinges on some pretty arrogant people putting aside their egos...but let's just agree that it's possible.

The idea here is for a movie studio to let fans vote on who should be in their next movie. And who should direct it. But the catch is that they'd all have to agree to be in ahead of time, and agree that *gasp* the fans may choose someone over them. I think we need to work in some money for charity to get them to do it, but that's doable.

But wouldn't it be cool to see the script or a plot summary and then pick from 3-4 people for each part? Like, you get some serious say in the creative process.

You know where this would TOTALLY work? You know, don't you? Yeah, you know what I'm going to say. It's porn! A porn company could 100% do this and I think people would actually like it more. You could even vote on individual scenes. Yeah, this works better.

Folk Radio

2008-11-30T00:01:00.000-08:00

I listen to a lot of classical radio. It's nice because it rarely has obnoxious sound effects and screaming commercials. Indeed, usually there aren't many commercials at all. That and it is totally available everywhere. Or maybe anywhere with the proximity of a large city or university. But usually you can tune in for some classical music and just chill out.

That and I feel like I'm learning about music while listening. As opposed to top 40 radio where you learn about what is going on now. Classical radio largely has the benefit of most of it's music having already been canonized. This allows them and me to create a sort of sense of what classical music is and what I might perhaps want to know about it. So I'm like learning.

Now here is where I pull the M. Night Sham twist on you. Imagine all that but with folk music. Boom. Yeah. Let that sink in.

Okay, so maybe it isn't that profound. And maybe 'folk' is a pretty big word. But I would love to hear the types of traditional music that people play in Irish pubs the first Tuesday of every month. And old blues recordings. And gypsy klezmer music. You'd probably have to do a good job creating shows that addressed these specific types. But imagine if there was just a network of these types of radio stations our there filling the country with a folk music education. Something that isn't fly by night. Something that we might want to learn about while its here.

Saturation Point

2008-11-29T00:01:00.000-08:00

This might qualify as a bad idea, but it's interesting, and interesting is good, so I'm going for it.

The idea: Test how truly awesome the things you love are by saturating yourself with them beyond normal usage. We're talking music, movies, people, food, activities, colors, adventures, any old thing. You could set up a sort of experiment, such as: I will listen to Song X ten times today, and see how I feel afterward. Or, I will only wear turquoise for the next week, and see what happens. Chocolate will be the main ingredient in everything I eat until Friday. I will spend every afternoon with Fred until something dramatic happens. Et cetera.

Saturate yourself to the point where you feel questionably comfortable, and let me know what happens. I am reasonably certain at this point in my life that certain things are so amazing that there is never enough, and that I can't experience them enough times, and that there is no saturation point. It'd be good to have empirical proof of this, however. So get to it!

Citizen

2008-11-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

Why is it that people can't decide to be citizens of a place or not? Here's an alternate system:

Until a person is of age (the age is sort of arbitrary, here I'd say 18) they are taken care of by their parents government or the government of the place of their birth. At 18 they are offered to join that government as a citizen. Everybody has to be offered this, no discrimination. And if the person doesn't want to join, they don't get the special benefits package: voting rights, health care, &c. Perhaps there could still be a place for taxation (tho I'm still going to assume that that can be offset by sales taxes and assorted other taxes-property or whatever).

What I'm thinking of here is citizenship as a choice. One that comes with requirements and with benefits. Obviously there is a serious danger here of setting up a system in which people are denied rights, but I'm thinking perfect world scenarios in some respect. That is, it is easy for people to be a citizen if they'd like to and beneficial to the government to have them. But also that people who wanted to could opt out, could go their own route. And here's the kicker, still be allowed to stay in the country and do almost everything anyone else would do too. Within some limitations. Obviously the non-voting. And I assume other ways that are less than good as well. Point being, there'd be a choice. A non-national option that allowed you to be on the earth in some specific location without a particular governmental affiliation.

Anyways, clearly this could be exploited and made bad. But so can anything. Just a different model. And one I might like a little better.

Survival Landscape

2008-11-27T09:02:00.000-08:00

I'm 99% sure I posted this idea already. But suck it up because you're getting it again.

My idea is for a huge open lands project in which you could hike around for days or weeks or months and count on a somewhat steady stream of food. How, you ask?

Well, there's going to be small maintained gardens and crops for you to utilize. And there will be animals to hunt as well. All access will be managed carefully so that nothing is overused. The maintenance on these crops and herds will be done as behind the scene as possible. So in that sense it's kind of like Disneyland.

The idea is that there really isn't a place where you can do this without taking your life into your own hands. In my open space world you can venture out and explore and learn survival techniques but also be reasonably assured you'll be able to find food and clean water when you need it. And if things get really desperate there are people who occasionally roll through and can help you out.

Not that there wouldn't be danger. We're gonna release some mountain lions and other predators, too. It should be as natural an environment as possible. And it would be huge.

I'm not opposed to further Disneyfication by building some cool structures hidden in the landscape for you to find and explore. Caves, temples, etc.

It would be kind of fake, but also very real.

Work for your food

2008-11-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

I have to give partial credit to my friend Jeff on this one. We're both very concerned about the state of childhood obesity in this country. That state being Nebraska. Ay-oh!

Just kidding. But seriously. Have you seen kids? They're really fat these days.

So our idea is for an obstacle course, or series of obstacle courses, in which you are rewarded with food. But, like, that's your dinner. So you have to climb one of those wall things and at the top is half a sandwich. Then you crawl through some mud and swing over a puddle and get a cookie.

You know, typing it out makes it seem kind of mean. We didn't plan on that. It was more a way to incorporate calorie loss into calorie consumption. And trying to create a zero balance. And this wouldn't be something you'd do all the time, it would just be a silly learning exercise to help people equate the two. I don't think people often realize, or even consider, what kind of effort it would take to "get rid" of what they're eating.

It's not mean. It's supposed to be fun.

Period Piece

2008-11-25T09:39:00.000-08:00

Every so often it's cool in Hollywood to do these period pieces where you do some kind of dramatized/romanticized re-enactments of historical happenings or just stories to get people in the mood of how things might have been way back when. And sometimes they'll go to great lengths to make the costumes and the sets and all that really accurate, which will be great, but then they'll have like American actors pretending to be from Troy or France or whatever. You know, like an Australian Mel Gibson playing Braveheart. Or Brad Pitt in whatever that movie was that everyone but me saw.

My idea is that you really go all the way, including the language part, so that if you're doing a story about the Romans, you do it in Latin, with subtitles.

This could work really well with the Canterbury Tales, for example. The Canterbury Tales definitely have film potential, for one thing. Chaucer already has most of the script written in Middle English for you. And Middle English might even be vaguely comprehensible once you get into the swing of things.

I know there will be legions of people who will never see it because they're allergic to subtitles, but I still think it's a rad idea and should be tried at least once and probably lots of times.

Class Warfare

2008-11-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

This is something I might find a good way to try once I have a class of my own to abuse with my inane ideas.

When you read something there are impossibly many ties in all over the world. I'd imagine as a teacher teaching a novel it might seems really tough to pick one critical angle to take on a work. So maybe for one class session you assign everybody a different reading and make them play the role of that position on a book for that day.

An obvious problem is that not everyone has the same source material. But that is a problem to shifts the focus of its work onto the student to read, comprehend and represent well the paper they're reading. (Again, this might be a try once a semester type of thing, not necessarily fruitful for basic class discussion.)

Another issue is the fact that some of the arguments probably are two various to meet up in fruitful discussion. You aren't necessarily going to get much value by pitting a socioeconomic reading against a reading that is more about tracking a system of images through the novel. But also you might. You never know. And with enough voices in a class their is opportunity for some pairings not to be terribly fruitful while still having a lot of interesting fruit on the table.

Just seems this might very well teach kiddies about really understanding the argument of a paper. And also the myriad possibilities of looking at books. And really not closing off the possibilities. Instead showing that there is too much and learning how to still get value out of that over abundance.

Oh ye little experiments. I can't wait.

(Vam)Pyrrhic Victory

2008-11-23T00:01:00.000-08:00

That title is likely to have been misleading by the time you get to the end of the post, but really sounds to rad to have passed up. That and I'm off the belief that I can argue for the rightness of any title if need be and end up sounding at least halfway convincing. And so it goes.

Winter means less light and far too much dark. Often I get sad about this. Today (which is not today) I woke up from an afternoon nap in the total dark. This has always been a nurtured peeve of mine. Today, however, I'm saying no more.

Today I'm saying, nightwalkers, my friends, embrace the dark. I mean, I like the sunshine just fine. But don't I also love the night life and therefore, relatedly, to party? I know. Why them should I refuse to appreciate having extra night time? I can appreciate it. So I will.

You should join me in this. Think about the things that are more fun to do in the cover of night. Think about how you can go to an earlier in the day movie and not go into the theatre in the light and exit in the dark (it's already dark out!). Think of the parties that can start earlier and rage longer. Oh gothy friends, what have we to fear from the night? Are we not one with her wan pall? Can we not indulge our spooky urges? We can.

All this is yours if you'll simply flip your thinking around and decide to embrace the growth of the night. And then when it starts going the other way again you can drop the facade and return to loving the day.

And people who live in lands where there is winter. You have just a whole other set of problems and I can't offer you as much help. Even my positivism doesn't want to take on six months of dreary sludge. Lo seinto.

Spin Up

2008-11-21T00:06:00.000-08:00

How is JJ Abrams not doing this right this minute? Or is he?

Spin off that people don't know is a spin off. Seriously, listen up.

I suppose you can only do this once, but what happens is (and don't tell anybody) on series that has a lot of crazy mysteries, or that at least has some big unknowns gets a spin off. Only nobody tells anybody that it is a spin off.

And like slowly things start to get revealed on show two that make it seems eerily reminiscent of show one. But only really vaguely so that maybe you get the sense that they are similar types of shows or share some sort of similar sense of how the world works.

And then boom, you realize that actually the whole time you've been watching the other half of this other show and the two just come together in some big epic combination that fleshes both out through their combination.

Obviously this would have to be done with such artistry and skill that no one could figure out that that was what was going on. And secondly it'd have to be such a good combination of the two that it was worthwhile for them to be brought together. EG they would have to use the fact that they were two different shows in such a way that one show simply couldn't have achieved the same thing. Which is how it would go from being a trick to being something actually interesting and value as concerns the basic medium.

The other problem obviously is how to get people to watch both shows without telling them that they need to be watching both shows. But with people like Joss Whedon or JJ Abrams fans tend to follow them from show to show. And one could assume that this could go on for seasons without revealing the two shows being the connected such that you could wait until both had a huge fan base and even work to make sure it was a very similar fan base. Appealing to the same sets of people and what not.

Emmy please.

Video Chat World

2008-11-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

This is a call back to the very first post about sidelining chats. (I'm on a role with internet themed posts that I soon hope to stop.) But it is about video chats. Group video chats.

Firstly I want there to be group video chats in which (in interesting ways) you get to see many people who are all talking to you live. Perhaps this exists, perhaps not. I don't really care.

But once we have that, I want to be able to have sidebar conversations like you could have in real life, leaning to your side and whispering something funny to your neighbor. But you could actually do it over a separate channel. Like the group you would go on pause and you could say something just to one or two people and then come back to the group (meanwhile still hearing the main group).

Just think of this as a way to recreate a meeting type situation over video chat. But one that uses some of the capabilities of the internet (the fact that you aren't actually in a space that defines who your 'neighbors' in a discussion are).

Yes!

Rental Aide

2008-11-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

I am no fan of the rental lease. I'm a man on the go, a nomad in training and not capable of committing to stationary location for six months, god forbid an entire year. And so I very much dislike signing into these contracts that I'm quite likely to break.

I'm proposing a League of Concerned Citizens Regarding Rental Agreements and Assistance. Perhaps the community could decide that they want to support people who are kind enough to establish a residence for the unable to purchase their own. As in the city can help there be a certain number of rentals out there (they do that already kind of). But this could include a bit of insurance as to the people living or not living there. That is, the city could say, don't make anyone sign into a contract, but we'll be there to kick in if nobody wants to live in your place no more.

I see as a benefit of this that the city could peep in on the places up for rent that they're subsidizing and say 'hey, no wonder nobody wants to crappy place. fix it or we ain't helping pay for it no more'. That and renting peoples like me wouldn't be forced to stay in a place if they don't want to. I don't know what will happen a year from now. Or tomorrow. And I don't wanna be in locationally binding contracts. See?

I suppose the converse should be protected to tho. If I don't wanna leave I shouldn't be allowed to be thrown out or have the rent jacked up on me cause it's a hot property. This same city run agency can watch over that too. Somehow all without contracts.

Right? Right.

Friend Match Game

2008-11-18T00:01:00.000-08:00

Novel and throw-away in a sense.

I find out of the blue self-denigration is still my favourite way to start posts.

You know how chat has multiple people features? Not chat rooms, but invitation group chatting. Maybe if you saw someone sign on that you wanted to talk to and another friend sign on as well (and the two don't know each other) you could introduce them and chat with them both. Maybe they'd get along. And what better way to facilitate a first meeting? (I mean, clearly there are other and better ways, but why not go with what the internet has to offer, which is after all something.)

I mean this is sort of the starting charge that something like a Facebook needs. Obviously if you go to a party and meet a person you can hit them up on FB, but what if you just see their profile and think they're cool. Then asking them to be your friend without meeting first is just weird.

Maybe this could include a whole introduction card system. You could say 'hey friend, your friend seems cool. i'd like to be their friend too, can you give me an intro?' This could even be an official thing like an old fashioned letter of introduction that could come appended to your friend request. Or it could be an introductory chatting session.

Cause social networks are a tool, but fairly under developed ones in a lot of ways. Perhaps I should have titled this: Taking Social Networking (Far Too) Seriously.

Choose your own adv....THIS IS AMAZING!

2008-11-17T09:25:00.000-08:00

The internet. It's a powerful tool. One that allows us glimpses into worlds beyond and regions untouched. And yet no one has used it to fully explore the wonder that is Choose Your Own Adventure.

I'm talking a CYOA with lights and sounds and pictures and 4,000 alternate endings created by users. Fan fiction meets wikipedia meets online comic book meets fucking awesome. A world where every choice takes you someplace new and someplace new after that and everything is always evolving.

I KNOW this could work and could be insanely popular (amongst nerds).

I know video games are allowing users a lot more creative control...but this seems so different somehow. Nothing would need to be contained. And the user edit features would help to ensure everything stayed canoninical. Or as canon-like as the people wanted.

PS: I think it makes sense to start giving our posts more exciting titles. Studies show it increases readership by 900%.

Manage your Communication

2008-11-16T01:22:00.000-08:00

I've tried this idea here and for myself in a number of different ways. The idea is simply to set up some sort of regiment for yourself attempting to contact or otherwise communicate with people who want to communicate with but tend to have trouble getting in touch with (through laziness, apathy, antipathy, business or any other reason).

Overarching idea is simply to set up some sort of regiment for contacting these people. Weekly, daily, bi-weekly, semi-weekly, monthly, quarterly. Just pick one. Pick a system also. Letters would be neat. Phones are probably the best. Email and social networking probably are the easiest at this point. Pick who to write to. You could go onto your social network of choice and look for the least recently updated person that you're friends with and write them. You could make a special list of people you might actually want to talk to and systematically work your way through it.

But I guess most of all, just start. It's a lonely world and people like hearing from their friends. So just go for it.

Tiny Vintage

2008-11-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

I was at a wine tasting the other night (no I didn't drink straight for the bottle, yes winos can show class on occasion as well - thank you Nate&Ali and Shwin) and the guy was talking about the particularities of terroir and how vintners will take their special grapes and make reserve wines that are def better than the swill they normally sell us. Soo...

If they're already able to tell which grapes are going to be the best, they should make super limited reserve wines with those ones. Like, every winery should do this. I'm talking like max 100 bottles, maybe even like 25, maybe even 10. And this micro-reverse would be simply an attempt to make the best possible wine with the best possible grapes. And don't even sell that shit. Or like sell just a few. Maybe they do this already, but I think it should totally happen and that I should get in on whatever party it is that they decide to come together and crack those bottles open to share.

Gimme.

Do the opposite night

2008-11-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

Perhaps people can be put in to one of two categories:

(1) Go outters
(2) Stay inners

The reality is that most of us slip between the two groups like some sort of social ninja according to how the mood/weather/activities strike us. But then there are those that definitely slide one way or the other. And so if you have leanings to one side I propose you do this:

Pick the other one.

If you like to go out and club it up right then make a point to stay home one night, eat pizza and ice cream and watch movies. And turn your phone off. No going out for one drink. You're in for the evening and that's that.

And if you normally like staying in, you have to go out to a bar/ club with dancing and you have to talk to people. And dress the part.

And just see how it all goes. This is just a way to force a little perspective on yourself.

Babies

2008-11-12T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'll understand when this seems strange to people. I'd like, someday a very long time from now, to have babies. And it seems to me, that since the medical science is there, I might as well know if I'm capable of doing so. Or whether I'll encounter any trouble if/when I/we decide to do so. It just seems to me, that even tho this is still a long way off, if something were not possible I'd probably want to know that now instead of when I actually want the little things. Just seems odd that we all wait on finding this sort of thing out, like we want not to think about it until we have to. But for a lot of people that sort of news is devastating. And I'll bet in a large part because they've just stumbled along in their life thinking they'd just say and when and there you have it.

So why not, as part of yearly or so physical, get that stuff tested. Perhaps you'd even see patterns of increased or decreased likelihood of fertility and could sort of anticipate a time at which time is getting slim. Perhaps it seems odd to think about these things at all. But I sort of feel like with all the bizarre chemicals in the air and laptops on our laps (indeed, right now as I type) that such abilities may be becoming embattled or endangered. And you know, why not have more information?

And if it isn't your lot you have plenty of time to concern yourself otherwise. Just seems like a mistake to run ahead assuming and place such great importance on something you know nothing about.

But still...a long long long time from now.

Sretchable Paper

2008-11-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

Everything I'm about to say would make so much more sense to be a computer program (and I'd like that too), but it would be just that much cooler if it could be made in a physical, analog format. Here goes:

Paper that you can stretch, expand, shrink or otherwise modify in the now famous iPod pinch type of way. So I take notes in a funny way, sort of like a brain storm by a 2nd grader. Part of the theory is that you can make connections that are logical rather than temporal. Problem is you run out of space or you go one way with the notes and can't connect them back to the others. With this paper you could expand more room on the sheet right where you need it.

I'm imagining some kind of (I'm sure toxic and earth-destroying) plasticy substance not unlike a combination of silly putty or pizza dough. But obviously you can write on it. And when you stretch a specific part you can do it with such acuity that you don't actually change the shape of the other writing. Similarly you could potentially shrink a given bit of text with the right type of pinch motion such that it kept its original balance of dimensions.

I understand that I am asking for a lot. And I know that seriously a computer program that could do this could do it much better and much more usefully (so somebody get on that). But again, how neat would a piece of paper that could do this be? And maybe the shape would get all weird like pizza dough too. And when you're done with your notes or whatever, you can make it into whatever shape you want at the edges.

Seriously. This is a keeper.

Oats Sown

2008-11-10T08:14:00.000-08:00

I've always found it incredibly odd that tradition feels the need to make a point of the end of bachelorial freedom. I'm not sure I get why there is this 'last night as a free man' thing that goes on before dudes are married. It certainly doesn't match with my own experience of couple's life and as far as I can tell it doesn't seem to have been an issue for any of my friends either. It's like, you're in a relationship because you want to be and you're already in it wholeheartedly before you decided to wed. I'll diagnose all of this as a changing world in which we're more and more inclined to make these decision for ourselves with the stamp of religious, political or societal approval. That said, let's have an idea.

Perhaps people who do feel the need to roam about should plan ahead a little. I'm suggesting a conscious period of wandering about in the romantic realms (works for both girls and boys). Partially I'm taking a cue from a friend of mine who seems to have had no interest in pursuing relationships at all. As opposed to assuming this is about attachment issues, perhaps it is just a willful experiencing of the romantic w/o the commitment side. And perhaps that's healthy. Perhaps that allows peeps to enter more contentedly into serious commitments. Which, yay. Seriously judging by divorce rates people need to figure out how to come into relationships more contented and ready for the long haul. I won't launch into a diatribe about people working harder to make things work once they are there. I'll save that for another day.

Living local

2008-11-09T12:27:00.000-08:00

I'm reading this book about what it might be like if you really tried to cut the petroleum out of your food chain by having your own garden and getting anything you couldn't grow yourself from farmers/ranchers/mills near by. Lots of people (see Michael Pollan, Carlo Petrini, etc.) talk about the horrors of the military industrial food complex, but I think it would be really eye-opening if nothing else for people to do this eating local experiment for themselves.

And when I say eating local, I mean ALL local - everything from your oranges to your chicken to your walnuts to your oats, olive oil. There will obviously be things you can't eat for as long as you're running your experiment, but - and this is where I feel like I'm having a slightly newish idea - if everyone did this, you could start to see differences in regional cuisines again. There would be pluses like everything being in season and probably mostly home made (which is a plus for me, at least), but, beyond that, I think it would be more exciting to travel, if things weren't always the same everywhere you went.

It would be like taking the idea that baguettes are better in France up a notch because maybe they'd only exist in France. Maybe you'd have to come up with your own bread shape or regional dishes that worked for your climate and lifestyle. You could get excited about food again, because it would be challenging and new. And, if you grew it, it would be a lot more personal and meaningful.

And finally, if we were able to save all that oil that we pour on our fields to produce states and states-worth of corn and soy beans maybe we'd be able to spare a bitty bit of fuel for transporting us to faraway and actually foreign places.

Zoo Recipes

2008-11-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

So, when you go to the Louisiana swamp part of the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, they have all the bayou animals, including this really cool alligator with leucism, which looks almost exactly like albinism except that your eyes aren't red and it's actually a completely different disease. If it survived Hurricane Katrina, you should really check this alligator out.

But anyway, they also have recipes on the walls mixed in with all the bayou animal tanks. Things like crawfish boil or crawfish étoufée. You read it and then there are the little crawfish crawling around (or doing whatever it is that they do). And that's the idea - posting recipes of the zoo animals above their cages. Ideally these would be recipes of people who had to subsist on these things in the wild.

You wouldn't want to encourage people to hunt endangered species and make like giant panda stew, but I think if you could get recipes or even just first hand stories of people interacting with these animals in the wild, it would make it that much more real to people, and you could get a sense of the whole ecosystem, rather than just looking at a miserable little guy in a box or pen.

Another corollary idea is this: you should really check out the Cajun section of the Audubon Zoo, because it's pretty bad ass - especially the white alligator, whose house is air conditioned, I might add.

Carnival

2008-11-07T19:51:00.000-08:00

See, the problem is the goddamned Internet. Now that we can see everything so easily, nothing shocks us anymore. Which pretty much killed any hopes of the old school carnival oddities coming back. Which sucks.

So let's just all pretend. Let's pretend things are still bizarre and that they can't be reasonably explained. That way this carnival idea can return. We can all pay nickels and see weird shit and just geek out for a while.

No rides at this carnival. No games. Just a collection of bizarreness that moves from town to town and gets shown off by people in old timey clothes.

Bringing back the bayou

2008-11-06T07:47:00.000-08:00

You know how when you're on Pirates of the Caribbean, that guy playing Yankee Doodle Dandy on the banjo is a little bit eerie, but also a little bit romantic? What I want is the existence of that in real life.

The Audubon Zoo in New Orleans has a special Cajun section complete with floating general stores, which leads me to believe that such things have existed in the past and therefore could exist again.

I know bayous are kind of infamous for their still water insects and dearth of forward-looking people, but let's say you could make it a place that was mostly pleasant, but maybe a tiny bit sinister to keep it romantic. It would be like a scene out of Dinotopia with a little Captain Jack Sparrow tossed in. At night there would be crickets in the mangrove trees and you'd hang lanterns across your houseboat so you could see in the pitch-blackness and people would paddle up to the floating bar to play music and listen to the stories of the guy passing through.

How great would that be as an artist retreat? You could fish or write or paint during the day and hang with the other artists at night, or not, for example. Something to take you out of your normal surroundings and be completely different for a while. And if you liked it, you could stay.

I don't know how you go about making that happen, but I still think it's a good idea.

Clock Management

2008-11-05T16:35:00.000-08:00

I have no idea if this would work and be helpful or if it would just make things worse. But that's never been an idea not to suggest something.

What if for every task you enagaged in, whether it be paying bills or doing laundry or finishing a project at work you assigned yourself an amount of time allotted to finish said task? That sentence got long on me. Damn. Here's a shorter version: Budget time for everything you do. Like, with an actual scoreboard style clock.

I'm thinking that if you gave yourself twenty minutes to make dinner and had to be confronted with that time (the reason for using the big clock) then you might make better use of your time. You also might freak out like Herm Edwards or Mike Martz and make horrible, horrid decisions. But that all depends on what you're like under pressure. Are you cool as a cucumber? Or are you as hot and bothered as a cucumber left in the sun?

Now you're just picking a number so until you practiced a few times you might be way over or way under. But that's ok. You can adjust that later. This is about paying attention to how long things take you and staying focused on the task at hand.

It's a little bit like counting calories or following a budget. It's a way to train your mind to think about things a little differently. Is all. I'm saying.

Snow Golf

2008-11-04T11:18:00.000-08:00

It's getting to be that season when white people drive for hours to be cold and to exercise. I think we should combine that very white activity with another very white activity: golf. See, if you paint the balls black (as former president Harry Truman used to do) then you could totally play in the snow.

This actually sounds pretty fun. It's really like a whole different game. I mean, you need to know how the ball will break on different kinds of snow (slushy, hard pakced, etc.) and then adjust for that. You'd have less hazards I guess but the overall game would be SO much more difficult that you probably wouldn't want hazards.

And now we have a new use for golf courses that go neglected in the winter.

Collective Works

2008-11-03T22:57:00.000-08:00

One thing being at APE made me think about was artist collectives. I've always had these fantasties of motivated cooperative living with ART as LIFE printed in big letters somewhere at the backs of peoples' eyes or maybe even out somewhere in the open. But, you know, a lot of people don't want that. A lot of people wanna go home after a long day out in the world and cozy down with loved ones, or a book, or god-forbiden the television/internet. While I might still be pulling for the first one, I'll allow that some people wanna live in their own places and make all their own rules.

That said--and it was a mouthful--I'd like to see about a working artist (or whatever) co-op that was just like an office. You go in and do some work. You leave and return to your 'life'. I mean, I know this exists right? I'm sure every poetry journal and litzine and bicycle collective or whatever does this. People make time to get done with needs to get done. But I think I want to emphasize the way in which you construct this work project life. The office or gather place, a physical location, seems crucial. It gives the thing a physical reality. And I think too there is something to be had from creating that kind of work space, but for something really exciting and positive. Like I'd imagine newsrooms were in some fictional past without corruption and full of hope.

So yeah. Let's get a project and some cash and rent some office space. Do this shit up right.

Tattooed Thanks

2008-11-02T22:38:00.000-08:00

This is, hardly shockingly, for people who really like tattoos or people who don't really like tattoos but are somehow really really brave and sure of themselves.

Tattoo movie-type credits onto your back. A giant list of your creators, supporters, lead actors (in your life). You could go endless ways with this really. I'm thinking mainly about the ways it could thank all the different people that help you be the person you are and want to be. (And hopefully none of them stop wanting to be that person to you when they realize that you're the type of person who would get a giant back tattoo of their friends' names...but maybe that's just them.) This seems like the type of thing that tattoo people like.

And how about inside jokes? Craft services provided by the 680 Denny's. Or...all special effect preformed by the actors themselves. Sound track by all of your favourite bands.

And then you could go around slowing standing from a crouched position behind tables and look like you're scrolling upward. Or you could not do that.

You could really not do any of this.

Thank you everyone who came to APE to support us, everyone who came to APE to sell stuff and make the world at least a tick more artistic, to my tablemates and my compatriot for doing all the work to get us there.

If it floats, you're a witch

2008-11-01T22:21:00.001-07:00

We were at APE today, which was pretty rad. If you weren't, you should come and see us tomorrow.

As for the idea today, it's to build a boat. Well, not so much a boat, but something that might float you. No cheating and using inflatable stuff. I think you should do it for less than a $100 and I think you should get all the parts from Urban Ore or a similar salvage yard type place. Maybe you aren't lucky enough to have an Urban Ore where you live. Who am I to judge?

So yeah, get some planks or an old door and maybe something that could act as a pontoon. And something you can use as a rudder. You'll also need nails or rope or screws to attach everything together. I don't think this should count as part of your $100 though. I'm not evil.

You can even get a few friends together and have a competition. Like, who's boat sinks the least fastest. Or rephrase that to make sense.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T14:24:00.000-07:00

In honor of today's pagan holiday, I thought I'd relax my brain and just throw out some ideas for halloween costumes. I'll include pictures where I can.

This one is officially known as the "best costume ever".

I stole it from FilmDrunk in case you were wondering.

I'm tired of Mario and Luigi and would much rather see this pair.

Stolen from here.

If you're feeling really crafty you could try and be Killface...

..or his nemesis.

Personally, I'm tired of almost every kind of zombie, except for maybe a zombie cowboy or cowgirl. You could also go as one of your friends (which is what I'm doing). Maybe a victim from one of the "Saw" movies? How about a stormtrooper body, but the head of one of the characters from "Clerks"? That would be clever on at least one level. What about taking something entirely unslutty and making it slutty? Like... a slutty elephant or shark? You don't see too many people dressed up as the cast of Heroes. Which I hear is a popular show.

That's all I got for you. If you see of these, let me know, or better yet, take pictures and we'll put them up here.

Come see us at APE!

Related Search Terms

2008-10-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if I'm using the right terms when I'm searching for something on Google. Like, I know what I'm after but I just can't seem to find it. But I feel like I'm on the right track and somewhere out there is an entire website dedicated to exactly what I want.

So how hard would it be to tell me what other terms I could possibly be using? Maybe terms other people used after using the ones I'm currently using. I don't need them to predict what I'm looking for like it is now, I just need some help when I can't find something. I think this would work. And be helpful.

In a slightly related story, one time me and some other contributors to this site used that live person search engine and tried to get them to find really obvious sites like ebay and amazon. It was kind of funny, but mostly they were nice and treated us like we'd actually never heard of ebay. So in the end we just were impressed with their patience.

Band of Brothers (or Sisters): A Social Contract

2008-10-29T23:39:00.000-07:00

This is most assuredly a not for everyone type of post and likely a not for most people type of post.

Friends, good ones, should stick together. Friendship is more than like minded people rubbing elbows while in proximity. Friendship should construct proximity. Or at least that is how I tend to define it. And this take it a step further. This is perhaps intended for harsher times than these, but is also perhaps to say that for some people times are always harsh and they could use their friends.

The idea is for groups of friends to enter into compact to make decisions somewhat communally. I'm thinking most particularly about where to live and sort of how. So you and your college roommate think it would be neat to move to Seattle and try to pursue your rock band. But nine months in you're working at a coffee shop and he is at a tech firm and has met a girl and decides to move to Silicon Valley. And your stuck up in Seattle feeling shitty. What I'm purposing is that you decide, in pretty clear terms, when making such a decision in the first place, to continue making those sorts of decisions together, as a pair or as a group.

Of course people should only commit to such things if they are really willing to commit to such things. But I just have this sense that people are never explicit about these 'friendly' commitment and it often ends up in someone getting hurt or left behind. And sure part of it can be a 'pull your own weight' argument, where the coffee shop guy can be told that in order to continue on the terms of the contract, he has to get off his ass and do something a little more productive. It is a two way street. Just that it should be a clear street that a person can follow.

What I'm really getting at here and I'm sure this isn't obvious, that it is actually just my own sub-text, is the formation of mobile communities, groups of people who decide to move place to place together and to work communally to keep the members of the group as comfortable and happy as possible. Again, I'm always wanting to redefine the terms of community and to pull us away from the notion of the replication of the mother-father-child set-up that has been the only supported notion of primary community since at least the 50's (or so I hear). For me, that isn't enough and it does lead to bad things. We were never so insular. So let's make all those other connects more clear. And while we're at it, let's make them stronger.

Haunted Websites

2008-10-28T09:18:00.000-07:00

We have haunted houses, so why not haunted websites?

There could be scary things that pop out at you as you naviagte around, though that's just one way to accomplish this. You could also create legends about people who went to the website and died and now haunt it. Or if you click on certain pages then you'll die, too. Scary!

I feel like a movie studio might do this to promote a crappy movie but that's stupid and I don't want them to.

I want a team of crafty writers to develop stories and then to have a bunch of talented designers put it together. Like, there's one portal site for all these different haunted sites (which are really just new sites made to look like real websites). Or maybe existing sites could volunteer to be haunted.

And maybe on one page you see a kid in a picture, but then it's gone when you go back to that page. Or at varying intervals the screen goes black and then comes back in a second.

Scared yet? No, not of me, of the website. Fine. Forget you then.

Want to sell more houses? Design them this way.

2008-10-27T08:44:00.000-07:00

My man on the inside tells me that the housing market is slowing down. This is inside information though, so please don't go gabbing to everyone. But I hear that by adding value to the homes and the area around them, you can still move some product.

Things like schools and parks nearby are important but so are innovative features like solar panels and creative storage. People don't want the same old, same old.

So here's what I suggest: Secret rooms and passageways to add value. How cool would this be?!?! It would be great if you had kids, but even if you didn't I think most adults took some joy out of having a secret room or two. And because you'd be adding these features from the beginning you could save a lot of money. It's not like you'd need to do any remodelling. You'd just build it into the plans.

You could have rooms behind mirrors, stairs under carpets, etc.

This would be the greatest thing in the history of ever.

Mircro Economies

2008-10-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

This idea is certainly not for everybody. But in price conscious times this might suit some people. And I think there are implications that are even more valuable than that.

Two parts: Get a good sense of your essential items that you always buy, use every day, aren't ever going to give up. Say, coffee, toilet paper, electricity for your house.

Now, part two isn't going to be something that you can do for each item, but perhaps something to consider for things that essential but also special (like coffee, not like toilet paper). Make a deal with your local coffee retailer or grocery where by you do some bit of work that pays for your coffee habit. (Obviously convinced a company that this is a good idea is the hard part.) Think of it like a co-op grocery, where you put in a little work and get a discount on your groceries. But instead it is exact change for a specific item. Maybe you go in and do four hours of work one Saturday a month and that funds your entire coffee habit.

I know this is completely counter intuitive to our economic system, but I'm not all that trusting of our economic system anyways. And I think it would be good to have a more direct connection between the items we buy and the work we do to get them. I mean, at least for a few things, so you can remember more generally that the work you do is in trade for something. Or maybe that's just me.

The Chamber Pit

2008-10-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

There has to be a better toilet out there. I know this isn't my first toilet post and that might seem weird, but it is part of our everyday and I have no problem working on these problems.

Now I am thinking firstly about low environmental impact, meaning less water and no strange chemicals. And I'm also thinking about more easily fit into different rooms.

I sort of envisioned a porcelain hole in the ground that has a sort of hermetic plug over it. (That is, I think the whole water thing has a lot to do with the fact that toilets don't seal.) Perhaps there is some special kind of material that is best for this too, that doesn't allow anything to cling to it, such that a small amount of vacuum pressure when sealed could do all the transporting for you. Oh and I'm only thinking about this as sort of an augmenting object, adding to the availability of places to go to the bathroom in the house, as opposed to a complete replacement of the bathroom proper.

Anywho. Yup. I write these things.

Perfect QTip

2008-10-24T08:52:00.000-07:00

Firstly I know QTip is a brand and not an object, but there you go, they win, I don't have a better word for it. But the irony of it is that I'm going write about that brand's downfall.

QTips are made for cleaning ears. And yes, other stuff too. But cleaning ears first and foremost. And yet, they strongly advise that you don't clean your ears with them. One assumes as a liability issue or if you're less cynical perhaps because they care about their product's potential danger to your inner ear.

It seems then, that any company that was able to devlop something that could clean your ears and be advertised at such would instantly dominate the market. Plus there has to be a better way of cleaning your ears. And please don't say anything about those chemicals that you pour in your ears and like makes things gush. No. Some wand like devices that swabs the ear w/o the danger of bursting through it.

Go to companies. Your golden chariots await.

The inside of chairs

2008-10-23T20:35:00.000-07:00

I'm looking at a chair. Not a recliner and not a kitchen chair.

One of those more fancy looking ones with wood accents.

But underneath the cushion appears to be a large empty space that serves no purpose. And if you read this blog with any regularity you know we aren't a fan of useless spaces. Unless of course they're designed on purpose.

But why can't we throw a little storage box beneath the cushion? Seems easy. Maybe more expensive, sure, but what isn't expensive these days?

Eff it. I'm going to get a knife and and some wood and fix this damn chair myself. Gotta start somewhere.

The best hike ever

2008-10-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

I've had this idea for a while now. I'm not quite sure where you could pull it off, but I would imagine it's possible along California's coast or somewhere in Europe.

The idea is to take a two week vacation and spend a few days hiking/ backpacking to a luxury resort and then stay there for a few days and then spend a few more days backpacking to another resort and so forth and so on until your vacation is over.

Sounds fun, right? Or you could spend a week in each instead of breaking it up every few days. I just think the contrast of each experience would really make you appreciate them both even more.

This might work best if it were organized by a tour company so you didn't have to do all the mapping yourself....though maybe that would be part of the fun.

And then again maybe this is one of those things that only I'm going to like.

Insulated coffee bladders

2008-10-21T10:52:00.000-07:00

The thermos is so 1988. Can't we have a bladder that fits in a backpack (the exact same way it works for water) that is insulated enough to keep coffee hot? And then also start designing briefcases and laptop bags with more insulated and waterproof compartments? This way no one has to carry a thermos anymore but can still get their ridiculous coffee fix.

I say it'sridiculous because I think it's lame when I have to wait for you to drink six cups of coffee every morning because, "no one should even look at me until I've had my coffee" which you say with a stupid smile on your face. When drug addicts say the same thing about their drug of choice people tell them to go to rehab.

Make greeting cards yours

2008-10-20T12:34:00.000-07:00

Hallmark is a powerful machine. And while they aren't the only ones, they're the face of the problem. Cards so specialized now. I hate it. Sometimes I really like a card but the recipient is not a 13 year old girl, nor is it his birthday.

My idea is to just buy it anyway. Screw getting the "right" card for the "right" occasion. You can always cross words out and add in your own thoughts and sentiments. And as the made of honor at my brother's wedding pointed out this means you can just buy cool cards whenever you see them. Is it for a 60th anniversary? Just get it. With a little Sharpie work you can make that card applicable for Christmas.

Giant long-term capture the flag

2008-10-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

I can't take all the credit for this as some kids were playing it on an entire city block in Oakland. But they kind of got shut down which is actually pretty sad.

But I'd like to make it even bigger. The game would take place over an entire city and would span a couple of days or weeks. The way I see this working is to use some kind of GPS device as the flag. And make it so everyone could track the device online or with their phones. If you get tagged (which would be awesome because of the tracking and the whole being in public thing) then "jail" lasts for an entire day instead of you getting rescued. Maybe all the players should be GPS enabled, too?

There are probably some pretty serious rules that need to get established before you played it but this sounds super fun. I think a high-tech version of capture the flag on a huge scale would be epic.

Adult Obstacle Course

2008-10-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

Goddamn I want to run an obstacle course. And a fun one. Not one of those military made of wood ones. One that has water features and shit being thrown/ shot at me. And I want to jump over things and bounce on trampolines.

Couldn't some amusement park add this and let me rent it out? I figure anyone who participates would need to sign their life away, but that's cool, it's worthless anyway.

So just take equal parts the Marines, Double Dare, inflatable bounce houses, and American Gladiators and we're good.

It's thoughts like this that make me wish I had an endless stream of money. Sure, I could give lots of it away to worthwhile causes, but also I could build a kick ass obstacle course.

The Wedding Series, part in your face:

2008-10-17T15:59:00.000-07:00

Today is the day that sometimes poster to this site, Nate, and someday poster to this site, Alison, get married. Please join me in saying "yay" to the happy couple.

The wedding series has 6 ideas in it now and I thought it would be fitting to do another one in honor of Nalison as they are so cleverly reffered to by no one. I lobbied for Alithan but hey, what are you going to do?

The idea is to help anyone who got invited to the wedding learn the story about how the couple met. How? Through the magic of cinema, that's how. Basically you find some friends or a local acting class and write a little ten minute play/ movie with them. They act it out and film the whole thing. It could even be trailer length. It doesn't have to be super fancy or anything, I'm thinking like Swede level here. Or Max Fisher from Rushmore if you're more comfortable with that comparison. Again, not fancy. Fun and easy.

So you get married and then you show this video while pictures are being taken and everyone is bored. People drink and laugh and aren't bored. And they get all fired up for when you make your grand entrance. Huzzah!

Impressions during interviews

2008-10-16T15:55:00.000-07:00

Not sure if this is really in line with the spirit of this site, but just once could someone interview Frank Caliendo without having him do some impressions? I mean, the guy might be interesting and even funny without pretending to be one of the many people he impersonates.

I think this could be extended to every impersonator really. It's like they're not even human. They're just a joke machine that the host or hosts feel obligated to laugh at. I know I've heard you say "Boom!" as John Madden about 4 billion times, but let me fake laugh for five minutes anyway.

My idea eliminates the fake laughter. And Frank (or impersonators in general) might feel a little more human.

That should be our tagline. Aught Empire...helping celebrities feel more human.

Shock gloves

2008-10-15T07:43:00.000-07:00

I watch too much TV. And sadly, probably read too many comic books as a youth. And those things have led me to today's idea: shock gloves.

This would basically be tasers you wear on your hands. I'm thinking these would pretty much only have a law enforcement application. The thought being, you grab someone and they start to struggle and rather than have to tackle them, you shock them. Simple and quick. The glove would need to be made of a material that buffered you AND be nimble enough so you could grab stuff (like people). And there's a benefit because you wouldn't actually need to pull out or aim a taser. You just touch something. You'd be like a damn superhero.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's idea...rocket boots!

Wiki Book

2008-10-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

This hardly an idea, more like two half ideas that already exist and I'm just sticking them together like glue. To be more precise with my metaphor the glue that sticks them together also probably erodes the essence of the two things being stuck together, but I'm into deforming things I guess.

Wikis are great cause they use as many people's knowledge as possible. And they create a sense of group editing that sort of prevents the project from collapsing into random knowledge. (In fact this is probably my least favourite thing about wikis, that whole unspoken sense of what is suited and what is not, but in this instance it is the source of it's power.)

Books are great too cause are so bound and definitive. They create limits on knowledge. They say, in the book good, out of the book not. Or something like that. What they do is close off the time element that makes a wiki always so close to collapse. With a wiki, one day that unspoken community of editors could go away and I could go on and edit everything. Deface it all until whatever was good in it is gone. With a book, only a jerk with a marker can to that and only to one copy at a time.

So, make a wiki. Set a time limit. One year or whatever. And then print the fucker. Or you could even set a time limit but not tell anybody. So that there isn't this sense that you are working towards anything. Or you could even print the wiki multiple times. Like a once a year glimpse into what the wiki is and looks like. Has it grown? Shrunk? Become more tight or loose? Improved in grammar? All of these are interesting questions. And I'm not done with physical format words. So give em here.

Advanced Party Tricks

2008-10-13T10:00:00.000-07:00

You know how everybody has that thing they can do that will wow and amaze captive audiences for a least 5 seconds at a time if said audience is inebriated enough? Well, that but much much better.

I feel like I'm probably to exclusively--for the time being--write ideas to prepare you for the oncoming 2nd Fabulous Depression, things like "How to build your own shanty," and "How to get elected mayor of your own shantytown," or simply "Navigating shantytown politics for beginners: Making your shantytown government work for you". So expect that.

Today's version is to think of something (and perfect it) that you can do that amuses, entertains or fascinates people...that you could potentially do for money. This is for early on in the new depression era when people still have enough money for entertainment spending. Eventually you'll have to learn a real tradeable skill like cobbling. But for now work on that particular thing that makes people who walk by a little happier, a little more pleased that the world can still have some entertaining magic to it.

And if the world isn't collapsing, then you'll just be really good at it for the upcoming 'we're not all going to be homeless' celebrations.

2008-10-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty hefty run on politics last week, didn't we? I'm glad I didn't, but I was considering making suggestions as to what I thought you should vote for and against. I gave up that dream when I remembered no one reads this site and everyone would probably just agree with me anyway.

The idea for today is to go backpacking. Like, right now. Or at least in the next few weeks. It's the absolute most perfect time to backpack along the coast of California and if you don't live somewhere that has hurricanes it's probably a decent time to do it wherver you are.

There's less people, cooler weather, and a lot of the camping supply places are having sales. What's not to love?

Taxi Gift Cards

2008-10-11T23:09:00.000-07:00

I had no idea the world needed these...but I think it does. Taxi gift cards are for people who go out and have a hard time not spending all their money. You buy one of these in advance of a night out and that way, no matter how out of hand things get, you've got money so you can get home.

I think these would be particularly helpful for bar nights and strip clubs. I hear you can burn through cash pretty quickly at those places.

Useful Education

2008-10-10T21:32:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about basic health the other day. And how there have always been wives tale cures for things. But now, in the modern world of health care most of that seems to be discredited, or at least undervalued. But in reality the point was always about knowing something about yourself, or being able to provide for yourself. Don't you think current medical science could lend a hand with that and provide people more knowledge about how to do basic home diagnosis? Is it simply that we don't trust people with that knowledge?

So that's where this started off. And spinning out of that premise I thought we really should have some really basic functional human things taught to us in public school while we're young. Basic home remedies and like understanding how your own body works (nutrition as well) should be a start for that. But also things like basic first aid and like home skills and stuff. I know school is supposed to develop higher level things than all that, but really? People aren't learning these things, so who is going to teach them if not schools?

I think much of this could be done as a basis in elementary school, where the primary education is in basic concepts and socialization. And I happen to think that being a functional self-sufficient human is a basic aspect of good socialization.

I mean, a lot of what I'm talking about is taught through programs adjacent to schools like Boy Scouts and, I don't know, on soccer teams and stuff. But wouldn't it be nice if you could learn to manage a simple fever or a couple cuts without having to learn about God in the process? And don't we think that stuff is valuable.

Also I sort of feel like with the world crumbling around us it might be nice to have some basic survival skills for the madmax-esque future that is growing closer every day.

Rails!

2008-10-09T23:50:00.000-07:00

Sadly I must admit that is hardly an idea, but:

Vote for the high speed train in CA!

(Still with the politics here.)

In reality this is (or seems like) an fantastic idea, it just happens not to be mine (neither the voting nor the idea proper). I do, however, fully support train travel.

When I first heard about the high speed train it seemed (and it still sort of does) like a beautiful fiction that wouldn't ever happen in my life time. And that is sad. I should think that such things are possible. I should be hopeful about the state of the world. And so should we all (despite all appearances otherwise).

So vote for that train. It'll be like the late 19th century again. Sometimes you just need sturdy metaphors to stand on. You know?

Life your life all alone

2008-10-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

I'm not saying you should do this. Or me, for that matter. But maybe one of those kooky documentarians could pull it off for us?

The ground rules would have to be slightly liberal. I mean, I don't want to know what a shut in does all day (ok, I kind of do. But not for this particular project). I'd just like to know what it would do to someone if they developed and maintained zero personal relationships for a year. You'd have to change up your shopping and living habits. Maybe you'd need to travel to avoid seeing the same people? There'd be no email or social networking. No online video games.

You might die. I don't really know. But it would be interesting. I think you'd really get a sense of the value that even those little exchanges have on us. And how important it is to have friends and family, even if those relationships aren't the greatest thing ever.

Don't vote if you don't want to

2008-10-07T16:05:00.000-07:00

Continuing our very out of the ordinary run of politically themed posts (to be expected right now I suppose) I will urge you to make your own conscious, thoughtful decision about voting. EG, you do not have to vote.

This comes from a special place in my heart (read: rage) that absolutely hates people telling you you have to vote. It is not a duty. Certainly there are many and various compelling reasons to vote. I certainly am in favour of voting for people who believe in the political process or want to effect change in the world through the political process regardless of the sense of impact. (I've never been particularly compelled by the argument that your vote doesn't count for much, it does still count and therefore matter.)

Here are a couple of highlights from my thinking about this:

Most people I know live here out of happenstance. I can't accept that that qualifies one as having accepted a social contract, nor to I believe that having utilized such public goods as roads and parks counts as having accepted this same social contract. Especially considering a time when the relative youth of the person keeps them from asserting their choice (EG they are in a stroller and can't escape).

This argument is similar to the "he died for your sins" one. 1) I didn't ask for that and 2) I don't believe in sins under that definition. And therefore, doesn't apply to me.
I also don't like the argument that says "you should be grateful you have that, I really want that" addressed by those who aren't officially citizens. I also really want them to have that right, but that says nothing about the necessity of my choosing to join up with a system I don't believe.
One of the supports I pull up for my argument is that it is actually very difficult to leave this country as your nationality (that is, your freedom here doesn't really include the freedom to leave). You have to get another country to accept you which tends to rely heavily on that amount of money you have or the individual value you can bring to that nation. All this amounts to the fact that if you didn't choose initially to be here they don't make it easy for you to choose to be anywhere else.

None of this is to say that you shouldn't vote. Only that you should never feel compelled to vote. Vote because you want to and because you think it'll make a difference and because you believe that that is how you participate in your social world.

I will, however, be voting this year. For gay marriage, high speed trains and people who appear to me to be intelligent.

Run for Office

2008-10-06T23:11:00.000-07:00

My esteemed partner posted an idea recently about running for an office with no money for a campaign. My idea, suggested by a dear friend, is simpler and a little more basic: just run for office.

Yup. You. On whatever platform you want. Just go through the experience of signing up and campaigning and seeing what happens. You could take traditional stances on the key issues or take some present some really radical options. Speak in public. Make appearances. Write letters. Campaign in an unconventional way or buy a book and do it the same way everyone else does.

I think you'd gain a lot from an experience like that. Maybe you'd be more or less tolerant of mistakes people make during a campaign. Maybe you'd understand how someone can feel worn down and mail in or skip the things they know are important. Who knows what would come out of it. But I bet something would.

Or you could just watch episodes of the Wire where Carcetti is running for a mayor. I bet it's a lot like that.

My Computer

2008-10-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

Sean had to hear me blathering on about my ideal computer already today. So hopefully he won't read this.

Basically I want an iPhone the size of a book. A tablet computer with fancy touch screen capabilities. I mean, 1) would be an ideal ereader device, but finally one that has another purpose. I'm purposing that people generally like and are used to the size and shape of books. Most bags fit them, they tend to be light enough.

2) A larger size would pretty well solve the only irrating thing about the onscreen keyboard on the iPhone. I don't think that it is the fact that the keyboard is onscreen that really bugs people, but that the letters are too close together to really be easy to punch accurately and quickly. Solved.

3) Same size thing can be said about viewing web pages. The iPhone deals with it well, but imagine the extended realestate and how much better that would be. Smaller than a normal computer, yes, but just about right for anything you're attempting to really read (like a book, see).

4) I'd add a stylus for active note taking. While the iPhone touch capabilities have made this unecessary for basic usuage there is still a good point to having it for being able to jot notes down quickly. I think the technology for script recognition is defininately there and I think this is one of the big inferface issues left to deal with. People want something that has many different ways to interact with, all of which are the ones that we're used to dealing with. Typing is essential, but so is a couple quick strokes of a pen. I don't think people are really willing to give up either option. This will also make the computer essentially a writing tablet when you want it to be, thus making it ideal for meetings, classes and things where punch away at a computer is still considered indecent.

I'm pretty sure I just invented the ideal computer. The only thing I can think of that is wrong with it is that I'm not sure anyone would be willing to put something booksized up to their ear and call it a phone. But people I'm misjudging. I thought it was weird that people accepted the first hunking smart phones when smaller options with less function were available. But people do tend to follow function.

I sez these are esstential functions. Get to it peoples. Apple...I'm looking at you.

The No Money Candidate

2008-10-04T00:37:00.000-07:00

A rare foray into politics. I promise to limit myself only to optimism about things I know nothing actually of.

A candidate runs for an office without fundraising or putting up any real money of their own (apart from some of the simple stuff like filing fees and the like, just no ads and what not). This becomes there stitch. First of all, I'm saying start small, local government. Go places that want to hear you speak about ideas, post some info online. Don't advertise. But also don't be afraid of or avoid coverage. Convince people and papers and whatever other organs of media to pay attention and they'll start paying attention. Eventually people might come out to see you speak in droves. And then the media will follow. Do it nice and pretty like. Clean and simple.

I feel like something this solid ideologically could have feul behind it. I mean, it isn't the complete avoidance of money or anything. It is just against the idea that a modern compaign is all about money. Sure somebody might wanna buy the volunteers lunch, or even pay the nice fellow who ends up doing all your PA work for you. But none of that should create a system that is so dependent on these concrete funds.

I think, given a certain amount of pragmatism (that amount, granted, is quite small) you could put online (see my honeymoon registery idea) the things the need paying for in your compaign. And people could specifically give money to that item. EG people would contribute money to a specific necessity and not a compaign in general. I mean, I don't want to help fund attack ads. But maybe I do want to fund the electicity bill for cost of running the speakers at a large compaign ralley.

Maybe it's silly. Maybe it is how we'll make a third party that sticks. Ha. But yeah. Still.

Computer screen desks

2008-10-03T05:32:00.000-07:00

It would be cool if every school in the world could have the desks I'm about to tell you about. But probably they can't. Sorry. Still though, no one can have them if we don't make the first one, right?

So this magical desk looks like a regular school desk. Only the actual writing surface is a computer screen covered by some intense plastic. The screen is totally sealed off and no amount of liquids or arm grease or sharp objects jammed towards it is ever going to reach that precious monitor. But the whole thing does tilt up and rotate. And there would be storage underneath it where the actual computer and a wireless keyboard are stored. So yeah, basically you've got a desk and a computer all in one.

It makes for an easy transition from a lecture to a computer lesson.

I just saved some space. Which means we can cram like 50 more kids in this classroom. Let's do it.

Baseball Playoffs Sex Game

2008-10-02T04:59:00.000-07:00

Mom, don't read this one.

Hey, are you in a relationship? Do you like sex and have a passing interest in baseball? Then this might be for you.

Take 8 sexual situations, moves, scenarios, or devices and write them on a slip of paper. Then put them in a hat. Now go down the list of MLB playoff teams and draw one slip of paper to correspond with each team. So now each team has a sexual value. The Dodgers are a striptease, the Rays are oral sex, Boston is anal, etc. (Note: These should all be fun things you're ok with doing. But they should also be a little out of the ordinary.)

So everyday, there's going to be a couple of winning teams. Like, yesterday, Phillie won. And so did the Cubs. And Boston. So now you and your partner have to do all of the sexual things that correspond with each team. And the next day it'll be something different. And different the next day. It could be fun. And hell, it's sex, all I'm doing is encouraging you to have more of it. You're welcome.

BONUS IDEA: You could also do this weekly with the NFL schedule. I mean, on most Sundays there are like 13 games. That's 13 things you get to do to each other! And think about the ridiculous combinations that would come up. Hot.